Social Networking as an Educational Tool

 

The educational technologies have developed with the advent of Web 2.0 tools. These tools let students and teachers create, change and share their content for their learning adventure. Web 2.0 also creates a cycle of information sharing, thus people can learn and teach through their social networks. These social networks mainly form as a result of the interaction between learners and mentors via channels like Wikipedia, blogs, podcasts and Youtube, etc. People can comment on their peers' contents and link to each other. These Web 2.0 tools have made learners work in groups more. Regarding users of Internet are mostly young people, these young learners can collaborate on works and it is more engaging and attractive to them. However, some experts are in the opinion that Internet can have much information which is not filtered and which may not be trustworthy. Scholars criticizing the intensive use of technology in education think that students may not be able to decide whether the information they receive from Internet is correct or qualified enough, either. Additionally, the millenial learners are thought to be wanting quick answers and short focusing time on any topic. Lastly, it is said by some that learners create their content on different platforms which makes it difficult to keep track of them for both themselves and visitors. Oblinger's study (2005) has reported that millenial learners have the ability of multitasking instead of single task. They prefer learning from visual and auditory content like pictures, sounds and videos instead of written material. They like teamwork and interaction with peers more than individual work. Oblinger adds, though: They pay shorter attention to the topic. They do not think over what they learn much so they cannot internalise the knowledge and they are more criticizing the source of information. Brown and Duguid (2000) state that most of what people learn are unplanned and spontaneous which is thanks to the social communications. Now, the socializing has mostly evolved into online environments. To sum up, Web 2.0 has created a social networking among learning environments, and it is likely to continue to change educational technologies to much extent.

References

• Mason, Robin & Rennie, Frank. (2008). E-Learning and Social Networking Handbook. London, UK: Routledge. (The main source of the text.)
• Oblinger, Diana. (2005). Educating the Net Generation.
• Brown, John & Duguid, Paul. (2002). The Social Life of Information. 10.1016/S0016-3287(00)00065-3 (The first publication is in 2000.)

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